Gas turbine engines, such as those used in commercial aircraft, utilize a fan, compressor, combustor and turbine section arranged sequentially to generate thrust and propel the aircraft forward. Each of the sections within the engine core is structurally supported via multiple rolling element bearing systems which are in turn supported by a bearing support. A typical gas turbine engine has the fan directly coupled to the low pressure turbine. The previously described configuration balances fan efficiency and low pressure turbine efficiency which results in overall reduction in engine efficiency. The Geared Turbo Fan utilizes a Fan Drive Gear System (FDGS) which is a planetary gear arrangement that allows the fan to turn at a different angular velocity than that of the low pressure turbine. The final gear ratio allows for the fan and the low pressure turbine to turn at a speed of optimized efficiency. The gears within the FDGS arrangement utilize journal type bearings to facilitate packaging. During standard aircraft operations, a fluid pump provides oil from a main oil supply to the various components within the turbine engine to provide for lubrication and cooling. However, certain conditions may occur during operation of the engine, such as an in flight shutdown, where the primary oil supply cannot operate. During these times, an auxiliary oil supply stored within a bearing support is utilized to provide lubricating and cooling oil to journal bearings within the FDGS. The fluid pump within the bearing support is mechanically driven, rather than electrically driven, and as such can operate during the times when electrical power is unavailable.
The fluid from the auxiliary oil supply is distributed to the bearings via a pump that is connected to the auxiliary oil supply via a fluid tube. The fluid tube is connected to the auxiliary oil supply via a fluid coupler fixed in a fluid egress portion of the auxiliary oil supply. In current bearing supports, the fluid coupler is fixed into the fluid egress using a single setting epoxy and is blind fit to a reservoir tube within the auxiliary oil supply. If the blind fit fails, significant leakage can occur resulting in an unusable bearing support. As the bearing supports are cast pieces, and the epoxy is a single use epoxy, when the leakage is significant enough to make the part unusable the entire bearing support is scrapped and remanufactured.
Furthermore, the epoxy used in existing fluid coupler arrangements can break without warning, necessitating the use of a secondary retention feature to prevent the fluid coupler from disengaging entirely when the epoxy breaks down during operation.